Now whatever the origin of this apparently meaningless jumble of ideas may have been, it is really a perfect and very slightly allegorical expression of the actual present views we hold today.
To-day it appears as though it may well be altogether abolished in the future as it has to some extent been mitigated in the past by the unceasing, and as it now appears, unlimited ascent of man to knowledge, and through knowledge to physical power and dominion over Nature.
Nature is in austere mood, even terrifying, withal majestically beautiful.
There is nothing left now for us but to get ever deeper and deeper into debt to the banking system in order to provide the increasing amounts of money the nation requires for its expansion and growth.
On our plane knowledge and ignorance are the immemorial adversaries.
But what sin is to the moralist and crime to the jurist so to the scientific man is ignorance.
Scientific men can hardly escape the charge of ignorance with regard to the precise effect of the impact of modern science upon the mode of living of the people and upon their civilisation.
The pure air and dazzling snow belong to things beyond the reach of all personal feeling, almost beyond the reach of life. Yet such things are a part of our life, neither the least noble nor the most terrible.
Chemistry has been termed by the physicist as the messy part of physics, but that is no reason why the physicists should be permitted to make a mess of chemistry when they invade it.
